Christian Book Distributors

Christian Book Distributors (CBD) is a Christian catalog and internet retailer.

The company was started in 1978 by brothers Stephen and Ray Hendrickson, who were 19 and 14 years old at the time, in their parents’ home in Lynn, Massachusetts. Three years later, as Stephen graduated from college and Ray graduated from high school, the business moved into its first commercial facility in Peabody, Massachusetts. In 1984 the company built a 24,000-square-foot (2,200 m²) facility in the Centennial Industrial Park in Peabody. By 1996 CBD had completely outgrown the site and built a new facility across the street, where it remains today. The facility is now 300,000 square feet (28,000 m²). CBD employs a staff of just over 500 while continuing to be a family affair — Ray Hendrickson is the President and CEO, in addition to his 81-year-old mom and 27-year-old son.

Christianbook.com is an eight-time recipient of the BizRate Circle of Excellence Platinum Award, which is presented to top performing online retailers who have met the criteria set by BizRate Research for outstanding customer service.

CBD has been selected by The Boston Globe as one of the Top 100 Places to Work in Massachusetts 5 years running 2009-2013.

1978 - CBD was started by two brothers who were 19 and 14 years old, out of their parents’ home in Lynn, Massachusetts. At first, CBD carried only a few academic titles and offered them at discounted prices to pastors and Bible school students. However, with the help of their father (an Assemblies of God pastor) and mother, the two brothers soon watched their business take off. Orders poured in, and the driveway, bedrooms, and garage of their small house on a dead-end street in Lynn, Massachusetts, overflowed with boxes and boxes of books.

1980 - CBD hosted their first showroom sale at the Holiday Inn in Peabody, MA. These sales regularly draw thousands of customers to their warehouse several times a year.

1981 - The two brothers graduated — one from Central Bible College, the other from Lynn English High School — and within a month, CBD moved out of the Hendrickson family home into their first “real” business space in the neighboring city of Peabody, MA. Although the company has moved several times, they have always stayed in Peabody.

1984 - CBD became the largest company in the direct-to-consumer Christian catalog business. With a staff of 30, CBD moved into a newly built 24,000-square-foot (2,200 m²) facility that put all areas of the company under one roof. The company remained at that site until it relocated across the street to its current location in August 1996.